


free and young and we can feel none of it

by skybean



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Impulse (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Fix-It, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23479693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skybean/pseuds/skybean
Summary: Instead of running off into the Speedforce, Inertia comes home with Bart and Max.  Adapting to a time that Inertia doesn't belong to isn't easy, nor is learning how to be a part of a family, but he's going to try. (Diverges during and after the Mercury Falling arc of Impulse)
Relationships: Bart Allen & Max Crandall, Bart Allen & Thaddeus Thawne, Bart Allen & Wally West, Max Mercury & Thaddeus Thawne, Thaddeus Thawne & Wally West
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	1. emptiness doesn't know its own shape

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this isn't my usual, instead i normally talk fix-its with my friends, but this has been nagging at me to write, and i'm going to... give thad a much better thing he deserves than the garbage that actually happened.

His name is Thaddeus Denton Allen. At least, that’s what his birth certificate says.

And Thaddeus--or Thad, for far, far shorter--knows that official document was a lie. He also knows he has a lot of explaining to do to all of the people staring in front of him.  _ Inhale, exhale _ **_,_ ** Thad tells himself, not meeting the eyes of any of the people in front of him.

Not that it helps. Thad can hear Meloni and Bart talking--Bart much quicker than Meloni, both of them in relatively rapid Interlac nonetheless that Thad doesn’t find himself wanting to listen to. Max would occasionally chirp in, and well--Thad wishes they’d stop talking about him like he wasn’t there.

There’s a knock at the door.

Had this been two days ago, Thad would have sped to the door, a vapid smile on his face, in a perfect mimicry of the same kind Bart wore. But this was not two days ago; Thad is no longer pretending to be Bart Allen, but now he is trying to figure out what the next step of this was. Yes, he knows logically, things would happen to him, but nonetheless, every inch of Thad is crawling.

There’s a second knock at the door.

Bart stands up, grabbing the door, and Thad swears Bart sounds sullen as a resounding, “About time you got here,  _ Wally _ .” Echoes throughout the room.

Thad inhales nervously, looking at Max. “You didn’t say the _ Flash _ was coming.”

“Now Bart,” Another voice, one Thad isn’t familiar with, but it’s higher, older, and Thad almost thinks he knows who it is without actually looking.

Their grandmother, Iris.

“Aw, c’mon champ,” Wally’s(?) voice now. Thad squirms uncomfortably in his seat. “Is that any way to greet your cousin?”

Thad can pick up on the strain in all three voices. There’s no response from Bart--instead, Bart is back in front of Thad, shooting a look full of what Thad perceives to be as  _ pity _ in Bart’s eyes.

Thad doesn’t need anybody’s pity.

“So this is him?” Wally’s voice again, as he walks into Thad’s line of vision, sitting next to Max’s other side, and Iris on Wally’s left. Thad feels like he’s going in front of a panel of judges, all of them determined to vet him until there’s nothing left of the persona he’s desperately trying to keep together, to hide the traumatised child underneath--

No, no, that makes him sound too much like a victim.

“Yes.” Max says, looking at Thad, then Bart, then Wally. “This is Thad.”

Wally looks Thad over with a certain type of look that Thad can’t quite place. Thad doesn’t like it though; Thad knows that Bart and Wally don’t get along. Thad wonders how much stock Wally puts into old family grudges.

Then again, as a West, he is free from the Thawne-Allen feud, which is everything Thad represents, in a person. The feud.

Thad has never pegged himself for an anxious and vaguely passively suicidal wreck, but here he is, wishing that something would happen right now, something so big, so distracting, that he could get away, and never be seen by this family again.

Of course, there’s nowhere on Earth that Thad could go. Not that Bart wouldn’t be able to find him.

“Hello.” Thad finally musters the courage to say.

“Hey.” Another tone in Wally’s voice that Thad can’t place.

Thad exhales nervously, looking at everyone, before he finally tries to crack a joke--it’s what Bart would do, after all. “So, is there any reason we have a giant circle going on, and I’m stuck in the middle of it?”

“You’re not stuck.” Max says automatically. “You can walk away anytime you want, Thad. Nobody is keeping you here.”

Wally leans back in his chair as Iris and Meloni both study Thad over.

“He looks like--” Iris begins

“Like Bart, I know--” Thad cuts her off.

“I was going to say like your  _ mother _ .” Iris corrects gently. “Minus your choice in hair colour.”

Thad isn’t sure he likes that comparison. After all,  _ Bart _ looks like their mother--and does Thad really have the right to call Meloni a mother?

Thad looks at the ground.

And at once, as if knowing that he’s stressed, Wally interjects with the worst: “So somebody comes from the future, replaces Bart, and tries to kill Max, and you three plan on letting him get away with it?”

That remark is directed towards Bart, Meloni, and Max, Thad knows. But it doesn’t make it any easier; Thad just wants to curl up in a hole, disappear again, and he wishes vaguely that he didn’t have superspeed as a superpower, but instead invisibility, so he could hide away from everything, without having to worry about being judged for his actions ever again.

“He is just a child,” comments Max, “and he didn’t succeed in any lasting harm--and if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be well, alive to be having this conversation with anybody.”

Wally lets out a grunt of acknowledgement at that.

“Besides,” Bart tacks on, rather ungracefully, “Where else is Thad going to go? He failed his mission. Mama’s father--” Thad takes note that Bart doesn’t take Thaddeus the first as a grandfather. “--isn’t exactly the most understanding of people.”

“Quite an intelligent thought in your skull.” Thad says snarkily. And then he realises it came out, and he’s flinching, crouching down on himself, murmuring an apology. “Sorry, sorry.”

Bart shakes his head, instantly moving over to Thad. “Hey, nobody’s going to be mad at you for speaking your mind. Trust me, if they were, I’d already be in  _ loads _ of trouble.”

“Bart and Max are both right.” Meloni says, “After all, if Thad goes back, his life as he knows it is over.”

_ Isn’t much of a life worth living _ , Thad thinks.

Wally sighs. “So what do you all plan on doing with him, then?”

Again, back to the talking about Thad like he doesn’t exist.

“He could stay with us!” Bart chirps out automatically. “We could keep an eye on him here, and besides--”

“Absolutely not,” Wally frowns. “Bart, in case you’ve forgotten, this is an attempted murder on our hands--”

“But he didn’t succeed--”

“Bart, that  _ thing-- _ ”

“He’s  _ not  _ a thing, he’s a person!”

And Bart and Wally dissolve into an argument that Thad couldn’t really quite keep track of. It was all happening so fast, so loudly, and again, Thad hears his name, but he can’t focus on any of it.

If he realised earlier he’d be this much of a problem, Thad would have vanished into the Speedforce and lived the rest of his life alone.

Thad takes off running.

He’s not sure where he’s running to, only that he could have sworn he heard his name before he had taken off. He’s not sure from whom, and all Thad can focus on is the sound of the falling of his own feet, and the drumming of it ricocheting into his heart.

When he finally skids to a stop some ten minutes later--because endurance only lets Thad move for so long--he’s back where he started, and he can still hear yelling inside the house.

“I’m going after him--”

“Bart, you don’t know where he went--”

“Max, he’s scared, he’s lost, he needs me--”

“Bart, I think he needs space--”

Thad covers his ears, ducking behind an open window, curling up the entire time. He’s not sure what he wants, only for the tightness in his chest to stop, and the crashing feeling of fear to stop cascading over him in waves.

He’s free, he feels the need to remind himself, he’s free. He can leave any time he wants.

When the arguing finally stops some time later--if only because Bart storms out, slamming the door behind him, with Max and Wally both calling his name--Thad begins to pace outside, making sure to keep himself away from Bart.

He knows the entire thing is his fault. He certainly feels like it, and he knows he is not wrong. If he had just  _ vanished _ instead, he would not be in his current situation.

So what is his plan? He can’t change his actions, going back to the future to report his failure isn’t an option, but now he has to deal with the mess he has made, which was far easier said than done. Thad finds himself slumping up against the back of the house, wondering vaguely where Bart had gone--and if Bart is going to come back home. (Home. When did he start thinking of the Crandall resident as home?) Thad tries to tell himself that he doesn’t care, but it isn’t working.

“Bart!” It’s Max’s voice, and Thad is so thankful that he is in the backyard. “Bart, come back!”

“I’ll go after him.” Wally says, “There’s nowhere he could have gone that’d be very far.”

Thad notices when Bart sits next to him, mouthing for Thad to be quiet. Thad nods in agreement, not wanting either adult to notice them both hiding under a window.

Max and Wally are talking for a minute, fast enough for Thad to not make out what they’re saying. The door shuts, and Bart relaxes. “I never thought they’d stop arguing.” Bart explains, looking at Thad without making eye contact.

Thad nods. “Yeah…” He trails off in thought for a moment, before he half-leans on Bart. His eyes are watering, and he’s not sure why, and he’s not sure why he’s showing this much weakness to Bart, but in this moment, when Bart wraps an arm around Thad, and they’re both otherwise silent, Thad thinks he can forgive himself for this momentary weakness.

* * *

About a month later is when Thad finally shows up for school. It had taken much more than a falsified birth certificate; they had needed a story, had needed documentation, had needed Thad wanting to actually go.

Thad spends so much of his time cooped up in Bart’s room--not liking the silence of his own--being still and silent, that it had been easy to forget that he exists.

That first day at school was going so much better than planned. Thad separates from Bart and his friends instantly, saying he wants his own space, and since the two did not share any classes except the lunch bell, it is easy for Thad to disappear into Manchester Junior High with nothing but his wits and his desire to set himself apart from Bart.

Lunch comes rolling around, and Thad finds himself sitting with Bart, Carol, and Preston, like nothing was wrong with the world. Bart is talking excitedly about some sort of video game, and he and Preston are having a back-and-forth on it, like nothing had ever changed.

Carol is studying, but despite that, she’s the one most aware of their surroundings.

Thad sits next to Carol, as it was the only seat open. She actually lets out a grunt of acknowledgement to him and Thad takes that as a good sign.

Thad doesn’t really touch the food to eat, moving it around on the tray, mentall playing gymnastics with himself--it’d be easy to just not come back after a few days, he thinks, because nobody would notice he’s gone. He’s been messing with that thought in his head for some time: would anybody notice he’s gone? Did anybody like him enough  _ as himself _ , as Thad Thawne--or Thad Allen, he guesses--to care?

“Hey, Thad?” Bart asks, cutting Thad’s thoughts in two like a meat cleaver.

“Yes?” Thad asks.

“Wally wanted to see you after class. Thought I should give you a heads up, so when you see him outside school, it’s not a sudden attack of the what the fu--”

“ _ Language _ .” Thad cuts Bart off, rolling his eyes in mild annoyance. “You don’t need to curse to get your point across.”

“Oh like you care,” Bart replies with a hint of mischievousness in his eyes.

“I do when there’s an administrator nearby!” Thad says, pointing said administrator out to Bart. “You gotta pay more attention to your surroundings, dummy.” Complete with a flick to the forehead.

Bart rolls his eyes dramatically, before he says, “I have been. You haven’t been eating. You better eat, because who knows how long Wally’s going to keep you.”

Thad sighs, beginning to eat his food at last.

* * *

And at the end of the school day, there Wally West is--standing outside next to a beater of a car, and Thad vaguely wonders why Wally bothered driving when he had superspeed, and could be in Manchester at the drop of a hat.

But Thad walks over when Wally gestured, calling to Bart, “Tell Max I’m going to be late!”

“Do you want us to save you a plate for dinner?” Bart asks.

Thad rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

Before Bart says anything else, Thad ducks over next to Wally. Neither party holds any joy in their eyes, and as Wally gestures for Thad to get in the car, Thad vaguely wonders if this is how a kidnapping victim feels.

When they reach the point where they’re far enough away from the school to feel as if they’re not being spied on, Thad finally asks--all while looking out the window, planning this part of his mental map out, so if he needs to run, he can: “You wanted to see me. Why?”

“I wanted to have a talk with you.” Wally says, slowly pulling out towards a park. It is far enough away from most people at this time of day where there’d be no witnesses.

“If you want to kill me it won’t happen, Flash.” Thad says with unhidden boredom in his voice, keeping his eyes trained on the outside world.

“Who said anything about killing you?” Wally groans. “I swear, you’re just like Bart sometimes--”

“I’m  _ nothing _ like him.” Thad climbs out of the car, slamming the door behind him, his hands shaking a bit.

Wally climbs out, sighing. “Look. I just wanted to talk. Get to know you. I already know Bart--and Max and Helen already know you. Don’t fault me for wanting to get to know the newest member of the family.”

Thad is more aware of the part where his hands clench into tight fists, his nails digging into his palms, than the flinch. “Oh. So you drag me out to a secluded area, so we can what? Throw a frisbee?”

Wally’s hands are up defensively, and he takes a few steps away from Thad--to give him personal space? To show he isn’t a threat? Thad isn’t buying it--and Wally says, “I just wanted to talk. Away from Bart and Max. You have no reason to fear me.”

“Yet.” Thad says grimly, not loosening his posture up at all. “We’re here. Let’s  _ talk. _ ”

“I wanted to apologise.” Wally exhales. The tension leaves Wally’s body, and Thad feels it all rush into him. “For the way I treated you earlier. You… you deserved better than that.”

Thad prevents himself from dropping a few English swears--or Interlac ones, for the record--and instead leans against a nearby tree. Thad crosses his arms, watching Wally with a gaze that would frighten him with the intensity of it, could he see his own facial expressions. “Somehow I don’t think this is just an apology.”

“It’s not--”

“Look, if you’re here to threaten me--”

“I’m not.”

Thad runs his hands through his hair. “Then what is this?”

“Well, if you’d let me finish--” Wally’s voice holds agitation in it, before he stops, shaking his head, exhaling again, and beginning over again. “--Look. I’m here to say if you don’t want to live in Bart’s shadow all the time, I’ve got a spare bed you can sleep on for a bit.”

“ _ And, _ ” Wally tacks on quickly, “School’s almost out for Thanksgiving break. Just--just think about it, Thad. I can’t imagine what you’re going through--”

“Thanks,” says Thad, his voice a mix of stiffness and offense taken, “But I think I’m fine where I’m at. Glad you’re back, Wally.”

Before Wally can respond, Thad takes off running back to the safety of the Crandall residence, where he knows Helen, Max, and Bart will be.

He hits the door, navigates towards a safe space--closet, Bart’s room--and curls up in the back of it. Thad’s aware of Dox--Bart’s dog--pawing at the door, he’s aware of Helen calling his name, and Thad just wants all the noise to stop. There’s so much noise in his head, and he wishes it would stop.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale--and then Thad’s climbing out of the closet, tripping over some of Bart’s clothes and landing on the ground, hard.

“Sorry!” Thad calls downstairs, pushing himself to stand back up. He moves at a normal pace downstairs to Helen, and he catches his reflection in a bathroom mirror. He looks  _ lost _ , scared, and altogether like he hadn’t just had some sort of terrible anxiety attack that should have been spiced up with a harmonica.

“Is everything okay? Bart had said that Wally wanted to talk with you.” Helen asks, putting a hand on Thad’s shoulder, the other hand putting a water bottle in Thad’s hand.

Thad opens and chugs the water instantly, using it as a way to calm his jittering heart down. “Yeah. We talked. I’m pretty sure Wally hates me and wants me dead. He apologised for something I don’t even remember happening?”

Thad’s aware his voice is going up an octave. “Where’s Bart and Max?”

“Bart went to talk to Robin and his other superhero friends,” Helen says as she takes Thad’s now-empty water bottle and tosses it in the recycling bin. “Max went out to grab Chinese for dinner. Do you want to talk about it?”

_ Did _ he want to talk about it? No, not really, but he knows if he says no, it’s going to look suspicious. Also, Thad’s pretty sure he’s crying now. He wipes at his face, running his hands through his hair and lightly pulling on it for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. Would you like a distraction?”

“Yeah… Yeah, I think so.”

So Helen and Thad talk about nothing in particular for a bit--how school is going, interesting dog facts, if Thad’s gone on walks through the neighborhood, things that are simple, away from the stress of the very existence of Thad’s very life.

It’s when Bart walks in with Max, and Bart dejectedly slumps into a seat as Max grabs plates for dinner that Thad makes his way over to Bart.

Putting as much care in his voice as he can muster, Thad finally asks, “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“I quit Young Justice.”


	2. love somebody to destroy who you used to be.

The meal is silent. Nobody seems to know what to say to Bart--asking him a question about it seems like it’d violate the silence, which hangs oppressively upon the entire Crandall family.

Eventually, though, the burning question inside all of them bubbles up and out of Thad’s mouth: “Why?”

Bart looks at Thad so sadly, before he shakes his head. “I don’t think I make a very good teammate.” And Bart is silent for a moment, his eyes welling with tears, and he sets the fork in his hands down to press at his eyes. His shoulders shake in silent sobs for a moment, before Bart just begins crying in earnest, and nobody knows what to do, again--it’s like they’re all statues in front of him, just letting him cry and cry and cry.

Eventually, Bart pulls on his head, slamming the heels of his hands into his head, and that’s when someone finally moves. Helen leans over from her seat and hugs Bart tightly. “Oh sweetie,” she begins, “who told you that?”

“Nobody had to.” Bart says bitterly. “They didn’t notice me being--”

“Being replaced.” Thad finishes the thought.

Bart sniffles and nods a bit in Helen’s hold.

Thad feels like the floor is opening and grabbing his body, leaving him floating somewhere a bit to the left of his body, and unable to control it. Again, the unsureness of not knowing what to say or do--the part of him that doesn’t control his body can only sit and watch the scene unfold in front of him, and Thad’s body moves on its own, without permission, and says: “Well, they’re not very good friends then. Carol and Preston noticed something was up.”

Somehow, Thad’s pretty sure that didn’t help, because it only makes Bart cry harder.

“I--I don’t know if I  _ wanted _ them to notice,” Bart gets out through his tears, and now his hiccups that are beginning to form, “but they  _ didn’t _ . Nobody noticed there was something wrong with the situation, they just  _ assumed _ I was okay, and I--I wasn’t!”

It’s been a month and two days since Thad stopped pretending to be Bart. Thad can’t imagine how it felt, to bottle all of that up for so long. Mostly because Thad spends most of his nights these days curled up in bed, staring at the ceiling, and crying silently, and hating himself for his own weakness.

But Bart is continuing his sobbing over dinner, and Thad isn’t sure what to do to make Bart feel better. Weakly, he wonders if somebody else would be better at comforting, but Max isn’t moving, and Helen’s hugging Bart, and somebody has to do  _ something _ before Bart explodes, and--

Maybe it’s because they’re all fast, and that’s why it feels like it’s taking so long. Maybe it’s because Thad doesn’t feel in control of himself, and that’s why it feels like it’s taking so long. Maybe it’s because Bart’s superhero friends are all caught up in their own problems, and that’s why it feels like Thad wants to storm back up to Mount Justice, and punch them all until they’re nothing but pulp.

But Thad doesn’t. Instead he moves in for the most awkward hug of all time, holding Bart from the other side, slowly prying Bart’s hands from his hair. “Hey, hey,” Thad says softly, “C’mon, Bart, don’t hurt yourself.”

Somehow, a part of him wonders how he succeeded in getting the vise-like grip to unfasten, and a part of him wonders how he manages to get Bart to cry in his arms instead. Bart’s clinging to Thad as if Thad is his lifeline, and Thad isn’t sure how to deal with that. But he rocks Bart a bit, slowly moving a hand to Bart’s back, rubbing circles into it. He’s heard that helps.

Finally, Max moves. He’s frowning, standing up a bit. “I’m… I’m going to talk to them.”

“Who?” Thad asks. “Because if Bart doesn’t want to--”

There’s a knocking at the door.

The only sound in the home is Bart’s hiccupping and slowly receding crying. Thad keeps holding onto Bart as Max opens the door. Thad vaguely hears talking--some girl’s voice, and Max’s own--and Thad has to wonder if it’s Carol.

When somebody blonde walks in, Thad knows it isn’t Carol.

Bart stiffens in Thad’s hold for a moment, before he’s smiling like nothing is wrong--and everyone knows something is wrong--and Bart is moving away from Thad to hug the girl in front of them.

“Cissie! Hi!” Bart says. Vaguely, Thad knows who Cissie--Cissie King-Jones--is. She’s Arrowette, a former member of Young Justice, one who still hung around from time to time, who was trying to get better with her mental health, and all sorts of other things.

Thad wonders what she is doing here.

“Hey, Bart,” Cissie says with a smile, half-hugging Bart back. “Is now a bad time?”

“No.” Bart says. Thad’s eyes narrow a bit as Bart leads Cissie to sit at the dining room table, before Bart’s grabbing some silverware and a plate, towering Cissie a plate with food. “Eat, eat. We can talk.”

Thad sits back down at his own seat as Bart introduces Cissie to Thad, and vise-versa. For a moment, it’s as if Bart hadn’t just come undone about his friends _not noticing_ Bart’s replacement. Thad vaguely wonders how that conversation had gone down. He shakes his head, getting out of his own thoughts, and is aware his body is listening to him again.

Max and Helen exchange a look that Thad isn’t sure what it means. He feels himself shake just a bit as he tunes into Bart and Cissie’s conversation--which are light, happy things, it sounds like. Thad is almost glad Bart has a friend to talk to, one who doesn’t seem to be judging him. But then the question drops, the one he knows Bart’s been dreading since the conversation began: “Why did you leave?”

Bart stiffens up as if something had changed within him. He doesn’t look Cissie in the eyes, rocking a leg back and forth angrily, agitably, as if he really didn’t want to talk about it. Thad can see tears in Bart’s eyes welling up again, and he wants to reach out and protect him.

“You just weren’t clear about it.” Cissie says, “That’s what Robin and Superboy told me. Everyone’s really worried about you--”

“Are  _ you _ worried about me?” Bart asks.

“Well, yes--”

“I was… replaced. For a long enough time that it should have been noticeable.” And Bart looks away from Cissie, looking down at the food he’s beginning to stab.

“Ah.” Cissie says, as if that explains it instantly. Which, Thad supposes, it does. “We weren’t very good friends to you, then. Because we  _ should _ have noticed.”

Bart blinks and looks up at Cissie, clearly not having expected that reaction from her, of all people. He makes eye contact, before shuffling away from it, and Bart goes back to stabbing his dinner with a fork. “You can stay.”

Cissie nods, before she turns her attention to Thad. “You’re Bart’s--”

“Clone.” Thad says bitterly, not quite looking at Cissie either.

“You know, I was going to say twin.”

And Thad looks back up at Cissie, aware that Max and Helen have left the room now, to talk, and Thad isn’t sure how to feel about that at all.

“Huh?” Thad asks unintelligently.

“Well, you don’t have to be a clone.” Cissie concludes quickly, “Especially when it causes both of you such grief. So you can be a twin, instead. Not like anybody knows outside of the immediate group of people here--”

“A few of Bart’s friends know--”

“Well, Bart didn’t explain very well to the rest of Young Justice. Just said he was quitting, and he was  _ angry _ at everyone, and he stormed out.”

Thad furrows his brows at that, looking over at Bart, who doesn’t look very proud of himself. Thad reaches over and squeezes one of Bart’s hands. “Hey,” Thad says, wincing a bit as Bart looks up at him, tears in Bart’s eyes once more, “You don’t have to explain to anybody how you’re feeling if you don’t want to, okay?”

Cissie is silent for many moments, before she says, “If you’re comfortable talking about it though, you should. Not to somebody who knows you, but to somebody who can provide feedback on your problems with an outside perspective. Therapy is good for you.”

Thad and Bart both blink simultaneously. Bart says something under his breath, and Thad just blinks again.

Cissie continues her thoughts. “It helped me get through a lot of my problems. Maybe it’d be helpful to both of you.”

“Both?” Thad blinks once more, making eye contact with Cissie for a few seconds, before looking away, feeling very invasive doing that.

“Well, yeah. You’ve got plenty of problems too, and it’s hard to get through them by yourself.” Cissie says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I mean--I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you sound stupid.”

Thad blinks again, aware he’s been blinking too much, before he says, “I think Bart needs it more than I do.”

“Suffering isn’t a competition.” Bart says then, sounding so wooden and upset with the world all at once. “At least, that’s what Cassie told me once.”

“ _ Exactly. _ ” Cissie says. “Just promise me you’ll both think about it.” There’s a long moment of silence, before Cissie stands up. “Thanks for dinner, but I gotta go. I was  _ supposed _ to meet with my mom tonight, but I figured my friends were more important.”

Thad feels like Cissie’s visit hasn’t accomplished much of anything. Sure, she’s made Bart nearly cry again, maybe deciding to report back to Young Justice about Bart’s problems, but Thad is pretty sure it accomplished nothing.

Eventually, everything is quiet in the Crandall house--at least emotionally, Thad wants to think--and the two boys are helping put away dinner and doing the dishes. Bart’s putting away dinner. Thad’s doing dishes.

Honestly, he hates the feeling of wet food, and wishes it had been easier for him to try and scrape the dinner plates clean. It hadn’t been, and the sauce and hot water and dish soap in the sink was agitating the way his hands felt. But Thad pushes through it, not wanting to complain; he’s living in a state of constant worry that if he voices too many opinions, he’ll be in trouble, or that there’d be some sort of consequences for his actions. There were those in the future, and as peaceful as life seemed to be here, Thad was certain that the other foot would drop soon enough.

Foot? Shoe? He didn’t know the phrase, okay.

“What did Wally want?” Bart stands next to Thad, beginning to dry the dishes in the dishrack.

Wally. That seemed like a lifetime ago, even if it had only been a few hours. Honestly, Thad wasn’t sure what to say to Bart--that Wally had invited Thad to live with him? That Wally was concerned that Thad was living in Bart’s shadow?

From what Thad knew of Wally and Bart’s relationship, that didn’t sound like the best idea to bring up.

So he shrugs. “Stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” Bart presses.

Thad freezes up, having honestly expected Bart to drop it. But Thad shrugs again after a second, passing Bart the last of the dishes for him to dry. “...Told me if I wanted it, he had a spare bedroom.”

“Oh.”

Thad can see Bart’s small vibrations in his shoulders. Thad’s not sure what that means. He had never picked up on those sorts of habits when he had impersonated Bart. Thad isn’t sure if this is something new.

“Do you not like it here?” Bart asks in a small voice.

Oh.  _ Oh. _

Thad bites on his lower lip. “I don’t dislike it. You and Max and Helen are good companions. School is… tolerable.”

“But you don’t  _ like _ it.” Bart concludes, watching Thad begin to drain the sink, cleaning out the food trap at the same time.

“I don’t like a lot of things, Bart.” Thad says quietly, aware of the tears welling up in Bart’s eyes.

Grife, Thad feels like such a monster when Bart’s tears well over and Bart runs off, presumably to somewhere else in the house.

* * *

He stands there in the kitchen, hands wet, wondering maybe if it would have been better for him to have just disappeared into the Speedforce for not the first time since this started.

It takes a week of Thad staring at Bart’s empty, miserable face, all the while wondering if that’s how  _ he _ looks, before Thad asks Max for Wally’s phone number, and dials it.

He’s not sure what he wants from Wally. He’s not sure if running away is the solution, but Thad  _ needs _ to get away from Bart, if only for a little bit.

“West residence.” It’s a voice Thad isn’t familiar with. He clams up for a moment, having worked out all the kinks in his head, but now he has to admit he has no idea who’s on the other end of the phone.

“Uhm,” wow, that was articulate of him, “Is Wally around?”

“Can I ask who’s calling?” The voice asks.

“It’s Thad. Bart’s cl--brother.”

“Oh.” There’s a hum for a moment, before Thad hears Wally’s voice on the other end.

“Hey, sport,” says Wally, “what’s up?”

“Is that offer for the spare bed still open?” Thad blurts out, knowing that if he beats around the bush, he’ll never ask.

“Yeah. You need help packing up your things?”

“I don’t have a lot.”

Wally sighs a bit. “Not what I asked. You need help packing?”

“I need help telling Max.”

“Alright,” Wally’s voice is carefully neutral, Thad notices, “Give me a bit to finish something, I can be there within the hour.”

“...Thank you.”

“Oh, wait--before you hang up--do you mind rats?”

Thad blinks. “You mean like pet rats?”

“Yeah. Our roommate--or well, our permanent couch crasher--has rats. Also, you spoke to my fiancée Linda, on the phone.”

“Roommate?” That’s what Thad’s taking away from this conversation. “Who’s your roommate?”

“Friend of ours. Former supervillain. He’s turned his act around a  _ lot _ , so… Don’t judge him too harshly.”

“Can’t judge somebody I’ve never met.”

Wally laughs a bit over the phone. “Alright, fair. You go pack, and like I said, I’ll be there in the hour. Do you need boxes?”

“I have a bag.” Thad says.

They say their goodbyes, and hang up the phone. Thad sighs a bit, slowly making his way up the stairs to the room he and Bart were sharing, and ducks inside it, hoping Bart isn’t inside. Bart is, but he’s laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

Thad shoves his few clothes--his… costume, a few things they had gotten him from a consignment shop--into his bag, before moving to the bathroom to grab his hairbrush and toothbrush.

“Where are you going?” Bart asks.

“Wally offered a bed to crash on.”

“You’re leaving us.”

Thad inhales through his teeth, knowing the sound feels disgusting in his mouth. He looks back at Bart with a nervous expression--or at least, it feels nervous--and he says, “It may only be for a little bit. I just--” Need to get away.

“May.” Bart seems to focus on that word.

“Look, I’ll call, okay?” Thad sounds irritated to his own ears. “I just--I need some space. I need to figure some things out, and it’s hard enough here and--”

He’s crying. Great.

Bart moves over to Thad, instantly trying to wipe at his tears. Thad slaps Bart’s hand away. “Don’t touch me!”

Bart flinches.

Thad feels more and more like a monster, with every little bit he’s been screwing up as of late. He storms out of the room, taking his bag with him, and sits on the front couch and waits for Wally.

Wally, true to his word, shows up about a half hour--the longest half hour of Thad’s life--later. He knocks on the door, and Thad lets him in, and Wally sighs a bit. He can see the look on Thad’s face, and Thad knows it isn’t a good one.

“Got into a fight?” Wally asks.

“With Bart.”

There’s a sympathetic wince from Wally, and Wally puts a hand on Thad’s shoulder. Thad blinks, not quite sure where this is going, but then Max and Bart are both in the front room with Thad and Wally, and nobody is sure of what to say.

“Bart says you’re leaving, Thad?” Max asks gently as Bart stares at Thad with big, red rimmed eyes.

“Just for a bit.” Thad says. “I just--”  _ Need to get away. _

“He just wanted some space,” Wally tacks on when Thad doesn’t continue his thought. “I offered a spare bed last week.”

Max nods and Bart continues to stare at Thad. And then Bart is moving up to Thad. Thad stiffens up in the hug Bart gives him. “If you don’t get back by Thanksgiving, I’m gonna come bother you.”

And then Thad’s… laughing. An honest, genuine laugh--one that started as an awkward snort, and Thad is hugging Bart back. “Hey, I’m not going for  _ that _ long. Just long enough.”

Bart and Thad let go, and Thad’s aware tears are welling up in his eyes. He does care for Bart, some part of him knows this, but Thad needs some space, even if it’s only for a week. He’ll let Max and Bart come up with the lie as to why he’s not around. Thad just needs space.

Max and Wally are talking in hushed tones for a moment, before they both nod. And then Wally’s fluffing Thad’s messy hair, and saying, “Ready to go when you are, sport.”

“You can stop with the nicknames,” Thad grumbles, trying to fix his messed up hair.

Wally smiles a bit, heading out the door, with Thad following.

* * *

“What’s Linda like?” Thad can’t help but ask on their way back to Wally’s home.

“She’s clever,” Wally begins, “and kind. She makes me laugh, and is like a rock when you need something to hold onto. Or well, someone. She’s just… Well, she’s somebody you can rely on, even when you’ve messed up.”

Thad nods. “She sounds like a good person.”

“She is.”

They skid to a stop in front of Wally’s home, and there’s a knock on the door, before Wally opens it. “We’re back!”

A moment of silence.

“Linda? Hartley?” Wally calls, a bit of worry in his voice. “Huh. Did they go out?”

Thad furrows his brow. “That’s not good. Did they say they were going somewhere?”

“No, they didn’t.”

Another moment of silence stretches between the two, before Thad finally says, “Let’s check your garage? Maybe they’re in there? Or the backyard?”

Wally nods, a serious expression on his face. “You check the backyard. I’ll check the garage.”

Thad nods, moving his way through Wally’s home, heading out to the backyard. There is nobody out there, no signs of a struggle. Thad frowns, wishing he had a better way to check the surrounding area, but he pours over every detail as best as he can. Green grass. Tree. No signs of a struggle.

Thad slowly makes his way back inside the house, pouring over every detail of the unfamiliar place. There’s clean dishes in the dish rack, a pile of laundry folded in a laundry basket, a list on the fridge that is a grocery list, and not a hostage note.

All in all, it looks as if somebody had just left the home.

“Thad?” Wally calls from the garage door. “They’re not in the garage. Did you see anybody outside?”

“Nope.” Thad pops the ‘p’ sound, a habit he had picked up from pretending to be Bart for so long. “Where do you think they could have gone? Is there some sort of excuse that they would have left for?”

“They couldn’t’ve gone far,” Wally says after a moment. “We were gone for maybe twenty minutes, tops.”

Thad nods. “Is your car in your garage? I didn’t see it in your driveway.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Then maybe they just took a drive somewhere? I saw the grocery list hanging up. Maybe Linda and--you said your roommate’s name is Hartley? Maybe they went out to grab something.”

There’s a long moment of silence between the two, both of them trying to figure out--and quickly--what had happened to the two humans. But before any real conclusions can be made, there’s a sound of a car pulling up, and Wally’s moving outside.

Thad follows, only to see Wally hugging a shorter woman with dark, long hair, and warm eyes. “You had us worried,” Wally is saying, “we thought the worst.”

“We weren’t put in a fridge.” The woman--Linda--is saying. “Relax. We just went and grabbed dinner. You’ve been on edge of late.”

A man steps out of the car as well, juggling a few bags full of food. “I hope you like supporting your local businesses, Wallace, because we’re currently still on that ‘not giving McDonald’s any money’ kick.”

“If you say Deli Llama one more time this week--”

“Yes, it’s Deli Llama.”

Thad blinks as he watches the three discuss things that fly somewhat over his head. But then all three adults are looking at him, and the silence happens once. And then Thad is putting a smile on his face and saying, “I’m Thad Allen. Bart’s brother.”

“Wally’s told us about you.” The man--presumably Hartley--says. “Said you and your brother aren’t getting along?”

“Something like that.” Thad says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Wally said you had a spare bed, so I thought I’d take him up on the offer ‘til Bart stops crying.”

“We do.” Linda says automatically. “Welcome home, Thad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact, the deli llama is an actual restaurant in the town i live in. no i have no idea what it serves. i keep meaning to go, and yet i do not.


End file.
